The Cognitive Status of Risk: A Response to Thompson

Discussing the role that probability theory should play in Risk analysis and management, Dr. Valverde argues that Thompson\u27s approach puts too much emphasis on the distinction between Risk subjectivism and Risk objectivism in addressing the question, When are Risks real

Le règne du féminin dans Sagrado et La mano del amo de Tomás Eloy Martínez

Le thème des relations de pouvoir est omniprésent dans l’oeuvre de Martínez, et trouve sa première expression fictionnelle à travers une remise en question des concepts de genre dans Sagrado et La mano del amo. Ces romans créent un monde où règne un pouvoir matriarcal sans pitié ; les femmes, véritables maîtres de guerre, y détiennent des pouvoirs mortels et sont associées à l’oppression et à la violence, voire à la cruauté, face à des hommes soumis, asservis, parfois même relégués au statut d’animal. En rébellion face à l’absence d’un « Dieu Femelle » ou d’un « Moïse en jupes », elles ont renversé les rapports de force du modèle patriarcal grâce à une arme bien particulière : le langage. En effet, les mots sont à la source du pouvoir féminin ; c’est à travers eux que les femmes s’élèvent, mais c’est aussi la défaite des mots féminins qui les mènera à leur perte. Ces deux romans dissèquent donc le pouvoir féminin dérivant de la maîtrise du discours dans la sphère privée, et sont le préambule au traitement du même thème qui occupe une place majeure dans l’oeuvre de l’auteur, mais cette fois-ci dans la sphère publique, à travers notamment le modèle féminin suprême d’accession au pouvoir grâce au langage : Evita

Logarithmic growth dynamics in software networks

In a recent paper, Krapivsky and Redner (Phys. Rev. E, 71 (2005) 036118) proposed a new growing network model with new nodes being attached to a randomly selected node, as well to all ancestors of the target node. The model leads to a sparse graph with an average degree growing logarithmically with the system size. Here we present compeling evidence for software networks being the result of a similar class of growing dynamics. The predicted pattern of network growth, as well as the stationary in- and out-degree distributions are consistent with the model. Our results confirm the view of large-scale software topology being generated through duplication-rewiring mechanisms. Implications of these findings are outlined.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published in Europhysics Letters (2005

Controlling Excitations Inversion of a Cooper Pair Box Interacting with a Nanomechanical Resonator

We investigate the action of time dependent detunings upon the excitation inversion of a Cooper pair box interacting with a nanomechanical resonator. The method employs the Jaynes-Cummings model with damping, assuming different decay rates of the Cooper pair box and various fixed and t-dependent detunings. It is shown that while the presence of damping plus constant detunings destroy the collapse/revival effects, convenient choices of time dependent detunings allow one to reconstruct such events in a perfect way. It is also shown that the mean excitation of the nanomechanical resonator is more robust against damping of the Cooper pair box for convenient values of t-dependent detunings.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Nuclear effects in neutrino induced reactions

We discuss the relevance of nuclear medium effects in the analysis of some low and medium energy neutrino reactions of current interest. In particular, we study the Quasi-Elastic (QE) process, where RPA correlations and Final State Interactions (FSI) are shown to play a crucial role. We have also investigated the neutrino induced coherent pion production. We find a strong reduction of the cross section due to the distortion of the pion wave function and the modification of the production mechanisms in the nucleus. The sensitivity of the results to the axial $N\Delta$ coupling $C_5^A(0)$ has been also investigated.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of Chiral Symmetry in Hadron and Nuclear Physics (Chiral07), Osaka, Japan, November 13-16, 200

Identificación, evaluación y prevención de riesgos en las colecciones de restos momificados: el caso práctico del Museo Reverte Coma

X Congreso Nacional de Paleopatología. Univesidad Autónoma de Madrid, septiembre de 200

Natural selection on plant resistance to herbivores in the native and introduced range

. When plants are introduced into new regions, the absence of their co-evolved natural enemies can result in lower levels of attack. As a consequence of this reduction in enemy pressure, plant performance may increase and selection for resistance to enemies may decrease. In the present study, we compared leaf damage, plant size and leaf trichome density, as well as the direction and magnitude of selection on resistance and plant size between non-native (Spain) and native (Mexico) populations of Datura stramonium. This species was introduced to Spain about five centuries ago and constitutes an ideal system to test four predictions of the enemy release hypothesis. Compared with native populations, we expected Spanish populations of D. stramonium to have (i) lower levels of foliar damage; (ii) larger plant size; (iii) lower leaf trichome density that is unrelated to foliar damage by herbivores; and (iv) weak or no selection on resistance to herbivores but strong selection on plant size. Our results showed that, on average, plants from non-native populations were significantly less damaged by herbivores, were less pubescent and were larger than those from native populations. We also detected different selection regimes on resistance and plant size between the non-native and native ranges. Positive selection on plant size was detected in both ranges (though it was higher in the non-native area), but consistent positive selection on relative resistance was detected only in the native range. Overall, we suggest that changes in selection pressure on resistance and plant size in D. stramonium in Spain are a consequence of ‘release from natural enemies’

Activity ageing in growing networks

We present a model for growing information networks where the ageing of a node depends on the time at which it entered the network and on the last time it was cited. The model is shown to undergo a transition from a small-world to large-world network. The degree distribution may exhibit very different shapes depending on the model parameters, e.g. delta-peaked, exponential or power-law tailed distributions.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure